Amsterdam-based StrawberryFrog CD Andy McKeon sounds exhausted when he describes the genesis and execution of an intensive multi-media campaign to launch Mitsubishi's Colt across Europe as "a year of madness".

Not surprising, given he had a hand in every aspect: producing body copy for the Web; commissioning the vast aquarium tanks - the New Colt kiosks - that are pitching up in Europe's great cities through the summer, giving people the chance to interact with the hatchback via touchscreens and video clips; and supervising the production of a TV spot that gels the diverse strands of the entire campaign into the central sub-aqua theme.

These strands also include an extensive poster and print drive, building wraps, and a competition: the Colt Lifestyle Rally. The kiosks are taking the Colt - deemed by the client to be its most important European car launch in 30 years - directly to the market, presenting it suspended in the aquariums.

Chaya Chatterjee, general manager for communication management at Mitsubishi, is quick to point out that the campaign isn't about an underwater world as such. Rather, "it's about a fantastic journey". When StrawberryFrog came up with the idea of basing it under the sea, she says she found the metaphor exciting and surprising.

The commercial - "Where will the Colt take you?" - kicks off in a sinister way: a lone female driver glances in the rear view mirror and sees a pair of threatening headlights bearing down fast. In a second, convention is overturned. The lights - giant fish eyes - shoot past, the chugging Planet Funk soundtrack kicks in, and we're off across the ocean floor on a journey that combines all the dynamic and flexible attributes of Mitsubishi's new baby with a good dose of high camp.

Shot in six days - "long ones," says McKeon wryly - in Bucharest, the spot was uncharted territory for the 70-strong production team. At the helm were Rose Hackney Barber's rapidly rising Poiraud brothers, Didier and Thierry - "fabulous French guys," McKeon avers. "I really love French cinema, the way it takes the everyday to a place you wouldn't expect," he says, explaining his choice of directors. "I thought we might end up with something unusual and cinematic and a bit camp."

The Poirauds' experience with CGI and SFX was also a plus, although their frequently whimsical way of working kept McKeon on his toes. "There were a lot of cuts and screens for a 60-second spot but most of the direction was going on between their ears!" he recalls. "You'd ask for a storyboard. 'Oh yeah, I'll get it to you tomorrow...'"

Tomorrow never comes, of course. McKeon says everything appeared possible at the beginning and end of the shoot. It was during the middle that the necessary attention to detail kept stress levels tight. For the underwater world to be intrinsic to the story rather than the star of the show, it had to be as natural as possible until the last moment when the driver shoots off into a perfectly blue lagoon. "We wanted it to be like the most beautiful dream you've ever had."

Practically, that meant importing 24 tons of sand from the Black Sea and a smoke machine to help diffuse the light and create a sense of depth in the underwater world. It also meant hour upon hour of photography for Anthony Liant, the SFX shoot coordinator from BUF Compagnie on the set and on a scale model with a cigarette packet doubling for the Colt.

"We spent longer in post than planned but it was that last 5% of time that really helped," says McKeon, who adds the team went "cross-eyed" studying every piece of underwater footage and documentary it could get its hands on. There were lively discussions about the color of the water, ultimately taking it from a "greeny, natural environment" to the alluring blue of the tourist brochure.

Then there were the bubbles. "At first we thought we didn't need them. Then we realized they helped to tell the story: we didn't want it to look as if it was on the moon." More discussions followed, this time about the nature of bubbles themselves. They couldn't be so perfect that they were obviously a CG product.

McKeon is full of praise for Liant and his team, who spent "four months bent over computers on this thing" with "lots of hugging and crying" along the way. There was no other way, given that Mitsubishi had no production models of the Colt available for genuine submersion. In fact, it only had a prototype available for the shoot and while the actress playing the driver said she'd be fine driving it, McKeon balked when she confessed she hadn't sat behind a wheel for six years. So a black-masked stuntman sat on the floor in the back and steered.

The spot scales its own peak of camp in a sequence where the driver literally undertakes a submarine. KcKeon says they didn't want it to look like a military vessel. And it doesn't. Constructed during the five-week set build, it's a sidelong wink at a host of references, from Star Wars and Star Trek to Mission: Impossible, and those cult 1960s puppet sci-fi shows. Our heroine looks up and smiles, miming a tug on the horn. And the occupants - a pair of shaven-headed identical twins and their captain - oblige with a honk to gladden a trucker's heart, saluting her through a trio of portholes.

StrawberryFrog creative partner Scott Goodson says that bringing the Colt underwater for the campaign proves a point that the car can take you somewhere different, a key selling point for Mitsubishi's young and adventurous target customer. The message is that "Colt will give people a porthole to new experiences."

For McKeon, the computer-enhanced underwater location is just "a fabulous way to showcase the car" through a combination of great music and "stunning film". Well worth the price of a year's insanity.

Credits

Client: Mitsubishi

Agency: StrawberryFrog

Copywriter: Andy McKeon; Shawn Preston

Art director: Tuesday Poliak, Steve Mapp

Agency producer: Fiona Campbell

Production company: Rose Hackney Barber

Director: Les Freres Poiraud

Music/sound design: Planet Funk

Sound designer: Rajah Singh

Sound mix: Grand Central

Mitsubishi> www.mitsubishi.com

StrawberryFrog> www.strawberryfrog.com